Coffs Harbour students take heart

HUNDREDS of Coffs Coast school kids joined thousands of Australians nation-wide to learn CPR for Take Heart Australia Day.

Health professionals from the Coffs Harbour Health Campus visited Coffs Harbour Christian Community School, Toormina High School and St John Paul College and taught students and staff how to perform CPR as well as its importance.

CHHC director of emergency, Dr Alan Tankel and his team taught students and staff compression-only CPR, which doesn't require giving mouth-to-mouth-an aspect of the life-saving procedure that is a common fear amongst the community.

Take Heart Day:

"What we're aiming to do is take away the fear of CPR and what we've found in the past is that people are afraid of giving mouth-to-mouth for a lot of understandable reasons," he said.

"It's such a simple thing to do, it doesn't require anything but remembering to do compressions at 100 per minute and start as soon as possible."

Dr Tankel said performing CPR within the first minute on a person in an emergency can double or treble their survival from a cardiac arrest.

"It's incredibly important and incredibly powerful for anyone in the community to be able to do that."

Take Heart Australia was founded in 2014 and is the national body for improving the survival rate of sudden cardiac arrest in Australia.

The charity aims to bring together experts from healthcare, academia, community, government and the private sector to form a powerful, effective and integrated approach to saving lives.